I think Hunt is suggesting that there are relevant legal distinctions to be made. There’s a potential hostile environment, and there’s a potential threat of violence, and those are not the same concepts.
BTW, I’m kind of insulted that someone thinks I need to see what lynching looks it. I GET IT. It’s horrible. No one is excusing or waving away this speech. We are talking about societal and governmental responses to speech that is vile.
"PG wrote “fraternities (and sororities) don’t move en masse. There are sub cliques within.”
But fraternities (and sororities) are systems with histories, and SAE has a bad history"
Those of you who aren’t in Greek systems have this continued notion that there is this overarching national whatever that “controls” what’s going on. It is entirely possible that SAE’s national standards, board of directors, policies, materials, etc. are absolutely fully against this type of thing, would never sanction these kinds of songs being sung, etc. And that at the same time, there are a bunch of good ol’ boys at any given individual school who align under the SAE name and decide to be boys and stupid and vile and the whole thing. You don’t seem to really get that SAE national isn’t going to know this until this situation comes to light. They don’t go around and monitor all their parties and personally vet all the individual members and their activities. But, go ahead and believe that SAE’s official pledge training materials includes the lyrics to this song.
If one lives in a world of white privilege (or male privilege), one doesn’t worry about an attack on the way home from a Skittles run or rape drugs in the drink. Hunt, try to understand that some groups of people are kept down by a culture of intermittent (if not constant) threat. Some people never feel safe. Many black parents need to teach their sons to be afraid (of police, white vigilantes, random bullets). Most parents teach their daughters to worry about walking alone after dark, date rape, and “asking for it” in the minds of perverts.
“You can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me”
If a group of men were singing in harmony, I would interpret the you and me as dialogical between the singers. I would definitely see this as a threat if I was black and heard this. Since we have no evidence that it was heard by blacks, no evidence, I can see why you might get hung up on whether it was a threat. I would say that it is an active contribution to a culture that absolves Zimmerman (who has 6 mug shots) from shooting an unarmed teen (who has an obituary).
Although I certainly recognize first generation (negative or individual) rights, I am more interested in second generation (positive or communitarian) rights. When I lived in Singapore and my 8 y.o. could travel in safety, I realized that safety is a very important right: the right to life and the right to movement are primary goods.
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These kids were shamelessly singing cheery songs about how funny lynching a black man is. Why should I have any confidence they wouldn’t go further? They’re already way way out of bounds. Why would I think they’d stop there? If I’m looking for people who think that violence against black people is just fine, a good place to start is among people who think violence against black people is funny.
If I were a black parent, I would have just been getting a national lesson about how little black lives matter to so many white people. And then I hear these kids singing and giggling about hanging black men. Yes of course I’d feel my child was unsafe in that place. And so would you, if you had a black son or daughter.
Well, even though I’m a white person, it seems to me that I can consider whether certain fears are reasonable or not based on real-world evidence of the risk of violence. What is the history of racial violence on the OU campus? What is the history of racial violence involving SAE members at any campus?
I think this goes back to my concerns about the slippery slope nature of a “hostile environment” approach. If we are going to say that the presence of a hostile environment is going to be based solely on the perceptions of the people who are the targets of the hostility, where does it end? Even if you are going to use such an approach, you are going to have to apply a reasonableness standard, unless you are prepared to kick the Catholics off campus because their ordination policies create a hostile environment for women, or kick of Hillel because statements of support for Israel create a hostile environment for Palestinian students (and the reverse), and on, and on.
Also, it seems to me that there is some confusion between the creation of a hostile environment and evidence that one exists. It should be pretty obvious that the racist chant on the frat bus was not capable of creating a hostile environment on campus, at least until it was disseminated by others (who aren’t being sought for punishment). The chant might be evidence that there is a hostile environment on campus–but if there is, it’s pointless scapegoating to expel the two individuals that Boren expelled.
IMHO, no. It doesn’t creep me out, and I don’t feel threatened by it. If, as someone suggested, the song had ben “weaponized” as a prelude to assaulting women, then it would be reasonable.
Apparently she struck him first. How do you justify not punishing her also? Does it matter that his blow was more effective? Is it an open hand slap vs a closed fist punch? Is this another area in which women bear no personal responsibility?
This reminds me of an incident at another college. Apparently, at a fraternity party, a sorority member overheard a fraternity member saying something disparaging about her appearance to his friends. She confronted him and threw her drink in his face. He lunged in her direction, but was held back by his friends. There was no contact. The sorority claimed that this was an incident of “assault” against the young woman.
In my view, he was being a jerk for saying something about her in those circumstances, but she was the aggressor and out of line to throw a drink on him. An appropriate response would have been to confront him and ask him why he would say something so hurtful about her when it was obvious she could overhear it. Did he want to hurt her? I think there would have been some likelihood that he would have been shamed and embarrassed, and might even have apologized. But she thought, and apparently the other women thought, that she could assault him with impunity.
I think that if you hit someone it isn’t cute.
@Hunt, you have this idea that if we allow all speech at the University, with no rules short of prohibiting violence, we’ll end up with Arcadia University, where students are sitting around discussing Plato and Socrates.
I think we’d end up with Lord of the Flies University. If you allow bullies to bully, they will. You’ll end up with the people with privilege (rich white guys) lording it over everyone, parading through the quad singing “No means yes, yes means anal,” and “You can hang the n---- from the tree but he’ll never sign with SAE.” The privileged people would free rein to say and do whatever they want as long as you don’t catch them in violence. I can see why this lack of restriction would appeal to rich white guys, but I can’t see the attraction for anyone else.
You’ve previously said that allowing offensive speech means that other students would organize to combat it. No they wouldn’t. The students inclined to organize other students wouldn’t be there-- they’d have choices, and they’d choose to go where they could just study Art History or Political Science without suffering daily abuse. All that would be left is the bullies and their victims. How wonderful that sounds.
Well, nobody says you have to live in America. Or you could try to have the Constitution amended to further restrict the right to free speech.
Or they could attend private insitutions which aren’t arms of the government.
Yeah, I almost added that, but I didn’t think my retort would be as dramatic if I did.
Well, as I feared people are now verbally attacking the family of one of the expelled OU SAE students, demonstrating outside their home and accusing them of teaching their son to be racist. They are also harming the entire neighborhood and using this incident to bring real distress to many innocent people who have done no wrong. IMO, this far surpasses the wrong done by the boys on the bus but of course the people self righteously vandalizing the building that housed the fraternity or shouting at the family members and neighbors of the dopey kid who is at the center of this mess will never be charged or held accountable for their behavior.
It’s interesting that this hasn’t received any news coverage so far.
Exactly. Hunt’s ideal vision of Lord of the Flies University would not have many black students, because their parents wouldn’t think they were safe there. Hunt is saying that black parents shouldn’t be afraid to send their kids to Lord of the Flies University, where students are allowed to parade through the quad singing about raping and lynching. I say, black parents would be afraid (for good reason) that their children wouldn’t be safe there, and would send their children elsewhere. Hunt’s Lord of the Flies University would not be a nice place.
What??? You’re objecting to free speech?
Cardinal Fang, that’s not what Hunt is saying at all. Just trying to explain the legal distinctions within the context of a governmental institution. What individuals may feel about something is totally different that what the government can and should do.
“DonnaL, I believe you are a lawyer, correct?”
FWIW, I’m also a lawyer, and I concur that this would not be a hate crime in any jurisdiction I’m aware of. It’s not criminal, period.
I guess the civility is now officially gone from this thread.
There is a difference between allowing free speech and allowing harassment of individuals or groups of students. As posted above, the state has the right to control the time and place of free speech, but not the content. We may all be horrified at the content of this particular speech, but would not want the state to prohibit students from speaking out on controversial issues.
I personally think (more than Hunt and some others) that if this song were sung publicly in such a way that interfered with students getting to their classes or dorms without being subject to it, there may be a way to stop it as interference in the educational process.
Unfortunately for the recipient, demonstrating on public streets in front of someone’s home or having the press camped out on your block is legal in a free and open society. Vandalism is not. It may inconvenience those living in the neighborhood, but dissent is not illegal.
Certainly, national and local chapters may differ. In this case, we see that the ΣAE national rather quickly ejected the local chapter after the incident. Of course, some may suspect that the national is mainly acting for PR reasons.
However, the tendency of fraternities to be highly racially segregated at many campuses probably increases the risk of racism festering in them. No, fraternities are not inherently racist, but their often highly racially segregated living arrangements make it easier for racists who enter them to have their racist views reinforced, compared to living in a non-segregated dorm or other living arrangement which may help turn them away from racism.
Sororities seem to be even more highly racially segregated than fraternities.
Thanks, Hannah. I don’t know how I missed the fact that you are a lawyer. I thought you were involved in admissions counseling or something.
Hunt said yesterday that the students should be allowed to march through the quad singing the lynching song, so long as they weren’t directly advocating violence and they weren’t disrupting scheduled events. That’s what I was responding to.
I take Hunt as saying that anyplace students would be allowed to sing at all-- walking to class, in performance, outside a frat house-- at University of Hunt they would also be allowed to sing the lynching song.
So at your university, Cardinal Fang, what will you say when the atheist student association comes to you and complains that a Baptist student group marched through campus singing hymns saying that Jesus is the only way to heaven, creating a hostile atmosphere for non-believers? I assume you will expel the Baptists?